We have a name… we have a place in God’s Church. We have a destiny!
I’ve been trying to write a book for twenty years now. It’s a comedy, drama, horror, inspirational piece all wrapped up in one for a very specific audience of my very own peers, Pastor’s Kids. My first draft was written in my freshman college dorm room at a 1998 desktop and printed in my English department-printing lab. I remember running across campus with a fistful of change so I could pay for the pages, hot off the press. I read it over and over again, a scathing and unfiltered tear soaked autobiography about my life growing up as a pastor’s kid. I looked over my creation and called it good.
Paper clipped and bound together in a large envelope I addressed my book entitled, “My Initials Are Not PK” to one of the nations largest publishers and waited for a huge book deal to arrive. And I waited. And waited. Until one day I received a small envelope in the mail addressed to me from the publisher. The envelope was too small to be a contract. It was too thin to contain a large check. However, it was the perfect size for rejection.
The person whose name was signed at the bottom of this letter could have simply written a one line, “no thank you.” They could have chosen not to respond at all and assume the teenager behind her computer in the dorm room would move on to other endeavors. Yet they took the time to say some things I needed to hear, truths that would stick with me for the rest of my life. Rather than throwing my story into the trash they spoke into my story, they spoke into me. Refusing to embrace my hurt, confusion and bitterness they challenged me to heal and allow God to finish the work He had began in me as a little girl.
My immediate reaction to their rejection was anger and frustration. I was enraged by the assumption I was wounded and incapable of telling a story everyone needed to hear. The world must know the injustice and dysfunction I had survived and lived to tell about! It wasn’t until I spent another $20.00 at the printing lab to reassess what I had written that I came face to face with my own brokenness. What I had written was not a true reflection of God’s Church. In my attempt to help other Pastor Kids find their own identity I was causing even more chaos and confusion. I was devastated at the condition of my own heart.
Over the past 20 years the Lord has been teaching me how to take my initials, P.K, and turn them into my credentials for ministry. Through internships, discipleship and mentorship I was led by other ministry leaders who helped me identify my scars. They didn’t just bandage them up but helped close the wounds and which allowed me to step into leadership without bleeding all over those in my care. My life experiences I had written about in such a negative and unholy light became learning opportunities so the Lord could use me to my fullest in His Church. I had grown up in a home that was a Master’s class in leadership, loving people and church organization. I could take everything I learned as a P.K and in a healthy and loving way help others find beauty in their own story and the value in their newly found credentials.
I began to believe that one day I could sit across from the next generation of Pastor’s Kids and their parents (now my age) and say, “you’re going to be okay. You’re going to make a difference. God has a plan for you.”
So now is the time. Rather than launching right into a huge book project I’ve been challenged to start a blog for P.K’s by a P.K to begin a conversation based on our experiences, past, present and future. It’s also a great place for those of us raising kids in ministry to discuss some of the unique challenges of raising our very own PK’s and share some ways we can encourage them to use their initials specific to how God created them.
Habakkuk 2:2 paraphrased says to write down your vision, to write down what you see, that it might be slow in coming but it will be right on time. So after 20 years, I’m picking up the pen, or rather laptop, and running with this vision to speak into the lives of PK’s all over the world. My prayer is that together we can encourage one another to take these initials that have brought us so many experiences and emotions and turn them into our credentials to change the world and impact the Kingdom.
So let’s tell some stories! Embarrassing moments? Funniest church memories. Even something sad. This is where get to write one big story together…
We have a name. We have a place in God’s Church. We have a destiny. Our initials are not P.K.
Natalie Runion, P.K.
